Verbal or even physical aggression against rescue personnel has, unfortunately, become commonplace and ‘normal’ behaviour in Belgium. More and more paramedics, firefighters, first-aid workers and police officers have to deal with this behaviour on a daily and even hourly basis by members of the public that they are trying to assist. It has got so bad that often drink or drug intoxication is not the ‘catalyst’ as many people expect it to be. Trying to use this as a poor excuse to ‘shrug off’ this behavior is not an excuse to try and make it acceptable. No Attack on any Personnel in their place of work is acceptable, Ever!

It seems to those whose job it is to protect and aid us, that those in authority don’t ‘care’ and are doing little to stamp out this aggression or behavior. SPOED 112 have thus taken up the ‘baton’ to start a campaign to get this ‘Plague’ more attention and increase awareness before it becomes too late to ‘stamp it out’ once and for all.

So together with key supporters and sponsors such as Audax® (The Global Leaders in Body Worn Video Technology), SPOED 112 will be will be instrumental in organizing a poster campaign as the start. Initially it will feature 3 different images: 1 paramedic, 1 fire fighter and 1 ER Nurse who will become the ‘face’ of this campaign and hopefully raise the awareness and profile of this problem in order to change attitudes towards our emergency service workers who risk their lives every hour of every day to help us.

The campaign will be executed by the Brussels based marketing agency Sketch and the Poster campaign will be distributed in hospitals, public buildings shops, bars, on Public Transport and other highly visible locations in order to reach as many people as possible over the coming months. Together with our sponsors and partners we hope our endeavor will help towards making it a safer environment for our emergency service workers. Nobody should be at risk of violence in their workplace, EVER.

Violence against emergency service workers is NEVER ok.